What if one could retrofit an old diesel locomotive to run on wood gas? It has been done with cars and tractors. Imagine a gas-train that gets its fuel from stations along the way. I was thinking rural Russia and the trans-Siberian railway. You could have a pyrolysis carriage that little by little produces gas for the train and the biochar could be deposited on farms along the route.
Now I'm no engineer and as such I have no idea how much gas is required for a regular sized train and how big the pyrolyser would have to be.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
If biochar is such a good thing, why aren't everybody doing it?
That question was posed today at the coffee table. A very non-scientific question perhaps but I think it contains a few points.
1. We (in the west) are too distanced to energy production and consumtion to realize the amount of resources it demands. As long as the light goes on at the turn of a switch and the water is hot in the shower nobody really cares.
2. We have no or very little connection to the food we consume. Some state that we would eat far less meat if we somehow could see the cow behind the beef. All this leads to less interest in conserving farmlands and protecting forests.
1. We (in the west) are too distanced to energy production and consumtion to realize the amount of resources it demands. As long as the light goes on at the turn of a switch and the water is hot in the shower nobody really cares.
2. We have no or very little connection to the food we consume. Some state that we would eat far less meat if we somehow could see the cow behind the beef. All this leads to less interest in conserving farmlands and protecting forests.
Friday, December 9, 2011
A Simple Stove Solution? Re:char talks abou liquified petroleum gas in cooking stoves and how this helps in reduction of indoor pollutants. Further they mention the possibility to switch from LPG to compressed biogas. I was wondering: could on compress the refined gases from the pyrolysis process as well?
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Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Good things come in small packages
Is it possible to build a pyrolysis unit small enough to fit in a standard sized cargo container? This is a question that has been there in the back of my head for a while now. I can see a number of benefits and potential use of a solution like this.
1. Containers are ment to be moved. Huge amounts of energy are wasted because the raw material used in the production has to be moved considerable distances to stationary facilities. The use of a truck-, boat- or whatever-towed container could easily reach remote locations with a surplus of whatever suitable-for-energy-production bio-materials. Agri-Therm out of Ontario, Canada is manufacturing a pyro-plant-on-wheels but this is more of a trailer type.
2. Mass production. As quantities of these small units go up, the prize should come down. This would mean less initial investments for smaller enterprizes or private customers and the transition towards greener energy and heat would be easier (and perhaps faster)
3. Construction, testing and improvement could be done in one place, like for instance here in Finland and the end product could be shipped pre-tested to the end user.
4. Catastrophy first aid. I have seen back up generators inside governmental buildings here in Finland that have easily been fitted inside containers. A caravan of aid-trucks could easily incorporate a generator-container that would work on bio-waste and even plastic bags (check this article about pyrolysis of plastics by Kaminsky et al. 2000)
1. Containers are ment to be moved. Huge amounts of energy are wasted because the raw material used in the production has to be moved considerable distances to stationary facilities. The use of a truck-, boat- or whatever-towed container could easily reach remote locations with a surplus of whatever suitable-for-energy-production bio-materials. Agri-Therm out of Ontario, Canada is manufacturing a pyro-plant-on-wheels but this is more of a trailer type.
2. Mass production. As quantities of these small units go up, the prize should come down. This would mean less initial investments for smaller enterprizes or private customers and the transition towards greener energy and heat would be easier (and perhaps faster)
3. Construction, testing and improvement could be done in one place, like for instance here in Finland and the end product could be shipped pre-tested to the end user.
4. Catastrophy first aid. I have seen back up generators inside governmental buildings here in Finland that have easily been fitted inside containers. A caravan of aid-trucks could easily incorporate a generator-container that would work on bio-waste and even plastic bags (check this article about pyrolysis of plastics by Kaminsky et al. 2000)
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| Storage containers come in all shapes and sizes. Picture from http://www.closetsidea.com |
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Optimal burn temperature
This is a
graph[1] that got my attention. If you look
closely you will discover an optimal temperature for maximum char production at
about 450 degrees centigrades. This is not a high temperature and is
achieveable with low-tech solutions like the one made by Peter Hirst and many
others.
Sources:
[1] J. Lehmann, “A handful of carbon,” Nature, vol. 447, no. 7141, pp.
143-144, May 2007.
Metareview (first part)
The following is a review on a review[1] titled: “The pyrolysis platform”. It tries to give an overview on the current (2009) use and possible end uses of different pyrolysis products. It has some fantastic claims as well as warnings on what could go wrong if the use of pyrolysis products are produced in an unsustainable way. For example if the biomass production (needed for pyrolysis) would start to compete for land use with food crops, the price on food could potentially rise. Nevertheless, this was supposed to be a positive blog focusing on the benefits of biochar.
The tree main products of a pyrolysis plant (regardless of size) are bio-oil bio-gas and biochar. The ratio between these three is very much dependent on the pyrolysis method. This is why the pyrolysis method is so versatile. In addition the whole concept is relatively low-tech and is suitable for small scale (as well as large scale) production. Just look at the picture (taken straight from the article):
This is it for now. Next up: different pyrolysis methods and properties of different biomasses.
Sources:
[1] D. A. Laird, R. C. Brown, J. E. Amonette, and J. Lehmann, “Review of the pyrolysis platform for coproducing bio‐oil and biochar,” Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining, vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 547-562, Sep. 2009.
The tree main products of a pyrolysis plant (regardless of size) are bio-oil bio-gas and biochar. The ratio between these three is very much dependent on the pyrolysis method. This is why the pyrolysis method is so versatile. In addition the whole concept is relatively low-tech and is suitable for small scale (as well as large scale) production. Just look at the picture (taken straight from the article):
Sources:
[1] D. A. Laird, R. C. Brown, J. E. Amonette, and J. Lehmann, “Review of the pyrolysis platform for coproducing bio‐oil and biochar,” Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining, vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 547-562, Sep. 2009.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
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